A Kiss from Shaky Lips
by OutOfTheConfinesOfFear
Summary: On the night of 47 Seconds - "He tears his eyes away from hers and scans the rest of the bar, buying time and waiting for the right excuse to bubble up to the surface. More and more people have filtered out, spilled onto the streets, loosened and stumbling or tangled up in each other. It makes the air a little lighter."


Hi Guys,

So this takes place on the night of 47 seconds, it ties in to some of the lines and makes reference to the ep but is otherwise pretty much an 'I wish' scenario.

It is late and I am tired and all mistakes are mine. I do apologise.

Rated T for a little swearing and a little kissing.

I don't own Castle, but I do hope you enjoy the things I write when I borrow these lovely little characters. Don't worry, I always put them back where I found them.

* * *

His mother straightened his tie and pushed him out the door with some line about going out and moving on and grabbing life. It didn't work. She changed tactics then, fed him a speech about commitments and young writers and "remember when you were the new kid struggling to make it in the big bad publishing world?" He does remember, and so he is here, at a book launch party with a fake smile.

Conrad's book launch party is vibrant, alive with electricity and dozens of conversations, each one murmured and unintelligible until it burst open on fake laughter over what he is sure is a bad joke. It gives the whole place a familiar rhythm and he is surprised that it settles him, the flow of strangers exchanging pleasantries, the clinking of glasses and the tinkling of laughter being thrown around. Conrad is bubbling with pride over his creation, anxious and enthusiastic and there is something so hopeful about the whole atmosphere. The entire thing tugs a grin from his pursed mouth and a sense of unbridled pride swims through him when Conrad spots him at the door and throws him a smile filled with both gratitude and awe. He realises then that there is accomplishment to be found here, in paying it forward and nurturing young talent, that what he does without her is important too. He picks up a champagne flute on route to the young writer and nurtures that too, watches the bubbles gently rise and drift as the liquid slowly warms and the night wears on.

He slips straight back into the role he had known so well, he plays Rick Castle, cocky playboy millionaire, the one without a Kate. He laughs at all the right times, winks on his way past the waitress, returns the smiles of the mostly plastic blonde across the room and then he joins the boys at the long end of the bar.

The boys poke at him; rib him about Kate, about the real Nikki Heat and ask if he was allowed out to play tonight, if his Mrs back at the 12th gave him the night off? They're laughing and he tries, he goes for the whole 'Ha Ha, very funny' thing but the eye roll doesn't work, it gets stuck half way because it hurts, but he doesn't think they notice because they are already moving on. He thinks about his mother's speech, about commitments and why he had to come and he thinks he is done. He thinks he should leave because he has been trying to smile but he sees her in everything and he just wants it to stop. He doesn't want to see her or hear her voice repeating in a constant loop,_ I remember every second of it, I remember…_

He thinks he should go home, is in the midst of concocting an excuse when a keen slap on the back from some short, balding guy that he barely remembers but who evidently finds his own humour slap-worthy jolts him back and he finds himself in the middle of a hustle for the door. The guys are so excited, reminiscing on faded memories and tugging him along, banded around each other and regaling Conrad with stories of all the insane nights they remember and all the crazier ones that they don't. Alex is laughing, craning his neck and twisting over his shoulder, asking if he really did all that stuff, if the thing about the Police horse is true. Maybe it is both self-pitying and egotistical at once but it feels nice to be playing the hero again, instead of the moronic sidekick spending all his time trying to keep up, and so he throws some memories of his own onto the pile and trips along with them through the lobby and into the cooling night with a genuine laugh and rush of excitement.

They are marching down the street now, bumping shoulders and stumbling along in a clumsy bunch. They are drifting along, still tossing memories around when he abruptly and unexpectedly falls of his high. The rain starts to fall and its cold on his skin. It settles in his hair, little droplets catching there and slowly flattening it out, soaking in until it flops over his forehead and drips in a dreary rhythm off the tip of his too long fringe, running in a single rivulet down the slope of his nose. He silently berates himself as he watches the rest of the guys, ahead of him now since he started dragging his feet. They are still bouncing along, light and jovial despite their rain soaked clothes and flattened hair and he's angry that he lost it all so quickly. He is up and down and totally manic tonight; he's just trying too hard. He forces a jump back into his step, lifts his heels instead of scuttling them along and bursts back into the middle of the group, he picks up the middle of the tale and adds some unnecessary commentary because it's what they all expect.

They split into little clusters and clomp down some dirty stairs that look like they are going nowhere good and the atmosphere shifts suddenly, the air thicker and light dimmer in this bar that dwells beneath the street; it dampens him instantly, presses down on him. There is a constant buzz to this place, loud and grating as clusters of people gather in booths, huddling into each other like it makes perfect sense to cram into a tiny hole in the ground with the bodies of too many strangers and then seek privacy. There is a thread of music weaving its way through the myriad of half screamed conversations, something husky with a dirty beat that he thinks he might like but he doesn't feel sure about. Liquor and cheap perfume linger in the air and sit heavy in his lungs.

He wants to bail but then the rest of the crew is thumping down the stairs, hollering at each other and laughing too loudly, pushing him further into this sweaty little place and he is suffocating. He turns to make his way to Conrad, to practice some improvisation on whatever lie falls out of his mouth to get him out of here but then there is a bright sound, something light and sparkling that breaks through the muffled haze and floats over the dampened heavy buzz, it catches him off guard. It peaks his interest, tugs at something in him. He can't quite place it though, just feels the persistency of its pull and he is intrigued. He spins around to chase it and it is just teetering on the edge of focus when it sparks in a soft burst and then fizzles out, drops slowly into the persistent hum of the place and gets lost somewhere in the musky air. He misses it. He wants to hear it again.

He drinks the auburn liquid without a chase, relishes darkly in the way it blazes down his throat, the way it strikes his chest in a sharp bolt and bursts into flames that fill his ribcage and send the blistering heat soaring through his veins. His body screams with it, begs for mercy, for the cooling balm of a clean breathe. He drags in a ragged breath, dousing the flames with the damp air of this sunken bar and shivering as the blissful burn sizzles out in his bloodstream, shimmery and bright. It's too loud in here, he can't hear the conversation the boys are screaming next to him, he can just see their lips moving and their facing lighting up, so he laughs again at all the right times and hopes the joke isn't him. It's been a long time since he has ventured into a place like this, a single room filled to the brim with bodies; he is surrounded by people, by friends even, but all he feels is lonely.

He feels the loss of her keenly. So much a part of him, that love he held for her, he feels as if the loss of it all has left some senses weakened and fading, and in their places other senses are already heightening in compensation. It's an unwanted compensation though, heightened memories, and all of them of her. He wants to push them away, burn them until there is no trace of her left in him but he finds himself drifting. Vision clouding with the liquid movements of her body, the flick of her wrist as she twirls her pen, the way her fingers curl around her coffee mug seeking warmth or skitter across the murder board when the picture comes clear in her mind, the bounce in her step and in her hair, her eyes – glaring and alluring and teasing, the time he kissed her, the time that she'll deny she kissed him back, her smile, her smile, her smile.

He hears his mother's voice then, the weathered experience that laced through her words, the tone of sadness, of a mother's heart breaking for her child, "Oh Richard, love is not a switch you can just turn off." He sighs out a heavy breath, shoulders half-way through slumping in defeat but then it is her voice - Kate's voice. It's echoing around in the dull and empty recesses of his mind so clearly now "I was shot in the chest and I remember every second of it!" Every second of it, she remembers it all but it was only real to him. The anger trips along under his rib cage, sparks, reignites, builds a new fire in his chest. The fury rolls through him in unrelenting waves and suddenly he is burning with it, his skin alight with the need to hate her, he just wants to hate her.

The bright, sparkling sound filters through the air again and breaks him from the circling memories. It's colourful and fluttering but still a little hazy and he squints, cancels out one of his senses to amplify his hearing but it's his heightened sense of memory that brings the sound into clear focus, startling and brutal now. Her laugh - Kate's laugh. She's here. It bursts wide open at the end like last time, sparks on a short sound and then it's dropping back into the haze but this time he spins in time. He spots her then, crowded into a booth in the corner with Karpowski, Lanie and some guys from the 12th. Her head thrown back in innocence he rarely sees from her and he needs to leave. He is about to make a mad dash out of this suffocating hole but then he catches the sad edge of the sound, the way it fades on an almost sigh. He watches her then, the way her shoulders sag as the laugh drains out of her, the way she swallows too hard and her face looks weary. She's shaky beneath it all. She's trying too hard.

He doesn't know that, he reminds himself that he doesn't know her that way; he only thought he knew her but he doesn't and he really needs to leave because suddenly that bright sound that drew him into this dirty little bar sounds too much like a heartbeat that drives him mad.

He gets up and makes quick strides toward the door, heading straight past her booth. He hears her call out to him but keeps ploughing through the crowd until one of the 12th's boys nudges his legs out into his path, stands and finds himself face to face with him. He nods an acknowledgement and turns on his heels, Castle keen to follow but the rest of the groups starts shuffling out of the booth one by one and then he finds himself face to face with Lanie and his stomach drops.

She stops in front of him and eyes him up and down, rakes her gaze over him like the story will just fall out and then she stabs a finger into his chest, steps closer into him and takes a deep breath before growling, "Fix it Castle, whatever it is that's broken." She glares at him for a moment and he wants to yell, tell her it's not his fault, it's not his problem and she isn't the one who's broken but then she inches up on her toes, presses a soft kiss to his cheek and speaks into his ear "Give her a chance to fix it, you both deserve a chance". He hugs her then, catches her off guard and lifts her almost off her feet because he is holding on too tightly and he knows that but he's never had a Lanie before, never had someone care about the way he has been broken, and he doesn't want to let her go. She squeezes him back and whispers "Don't do it, Rick" before letting him go and walking away. He hears it all in the echoes of her silence, _Don't do it, don't walk away, we trusted you with her, don't break her._

He gives her a chance; he owes it to Lanie to do this, to at least let her know why she's broken even though he doesn't really understand. He turns around and looks at her, she looks smaller than when he left her at the precinct only hours ago, she's withdrawn and shaky but still so beautiful. She's looking at him with eyes that plead, like if he leaves right now she will shatter to pieces and it makes the anger bubble up his throat because why the hell does she look like that, she doesn't even care and this wasn't a game to him.

He plops heavily into the opposite side of the booth and almost feels the air leave her body on a sigh. He clenches his teeth and raises his head, determined to make eye contact, to let her see what it is she has done to him. He catches her eyes and sees them cloud over as soon as he looks at her, her bottom lip is sucked into her mouth and her chin wrinkles and pales and then her eyes water up and she tears her gaze away from him, focuses on the soaked cardboard coaster that she has been picking at and her breath comes slow. God, he's hurting her, he chokes on the love that he was sure was hate just seconds ago and tries to swallow everything down because it doesn't make sense, nothing makes sense. She's been playing with him, this isn't his fault.

She shakes her head slowly and then flicks her gaze over to Conrad and the rest of the boys lining up their next row of shots and her eyes come back to him sparkling and playful now as she teases, "What happened to just heading home Castle?"

She was going for light, trying for their normal but his jaw tightens at that and anger coats his tongue, thick and bitter and he wants to ask. He wants to ask her if she _really_ wants to start calling people on their lies. If that is really where she wants to go right now? He swallows it down, purses his lips together as the words threaten at the back of his teeth because even if she wants to go there, he doesn't, he can't. He hums out something that's meant to be a chuckle but it just grunts out and dies. It falls flat and heavy between them and her head tilts to the right, her brow crinkling as she analyses him like she adores him, like his heaviness is a weight that she carries and he hates himself for believing her when he knows that her eyes have been lying.

He shrugs his shoulder and his pursed lips quirk up at one side as he says "Plans change". His voice is dark and filled with so much grief that the lingering subtext and pain can't possible go unnoticed, not by her, not by anyone, not by a dead cat. It hangs over them, heavy and consuming, _Plans change_. She tries to shake it off, act like the words didn't just land on her shoulders, like she isn't curling into herself just a little more. She just murmurs a "Yeah, I guess so" and carries on with the persistent circling of one finger around the lip of her empty glass.

She feels completely off balance and weightless, she can't get her bearings and it's like gravity has deserted her because something shifted today. She doesn't know where to put her feet and he's looking at her like he wishes she would just get out of his way. This morning they were in sync, waltzing around in this delicate dance they've being doing for years, two steps forward one step back. But they are faltering tonight, stepping on each other's toes, pushing and pulling at the same time and it's clumsy and graceless and hurts.

She had thought… he was looking at her, this morning, after the bombing, like she was the thing he didn't want to leave until it was too late, like if his time was up tomorrow, not taking a chance on her was the one thing he would regret. At least she thought she saw that but maybe it's just what she wanted. Maybe she has been holding onto some desperate words he uttered to a dying woman for a year and everything she thinks she knows has been clouded by her need to believe in a lie, maybe his biggest regret wasn't not having her it was just, her. She's an idiot.

The anger is building steadily in her veins, it's colouring her skin and halting her finger, her hand dropping and curling tightly around the glass because why would he do this to her? Why stay when everything was a lie and… _Plans change?_

She can't do this.

Her tone is cold, harsh and stronger than truth when she starts at him, "Castle -"

Suddenly he is knocked off balance, a drink pushed into his hand and sloshing over the edges, settling in the crease of his thumb. Hands are shoving at his shoulder and thigh, pushing him along the curved seat and Conrad and the rest of the boys are shuffling in beside him, scooting along until he has slid along the entire U-shaped leather cushion and is pushed flush against Kate's side.

He cuts his eyes to her but she is determinedly not looking at him, she is smiling something fake and uncharacteristic at the rest of their party and lifting her hips, leaning over the sticky table and shaking hands with everyone. She sits back down and her hands drop into her lap, but her smile stays and her body is warm next to his, her scent is suffocating.

The boys all comment on finally meeting 'Ricky's girl' and he cringes at the delight in their tones. His mood is now just this side of horrid so the laughter that is probably good natured to him just feels rowdy. There are too many nudges to his side, and slaps on his arm, too many 'Jeez Ricky, no wonder you never let us meet her' and she is too close.

His body twitches at her side, nudges into her and backs away and she turns her gaze back to him. He is pale beside her, frowning and glaring at the jibes from his friends, breathing heavily and trembling with tension. He catches her gaze and it almost breaks him, the way she studies him, the way she is looking at him like she wants to gather him up and protect him, the way her hands shake in her lap like she wants to reach out when a few moments ago she had said his name like a malediction.

He tears his eyes away from hers and scans the rest of the bar, buying time and waiting for the right excuse to bubble up to the surface. More and more people have filtered out, spilled onto the streets, loosened and stumbling or tangled up in each other. It makes the air a little lighter. The place is getting emptier but louder as the clock ticks on, the alcohol starts settling in the bloodstream and each individual's volume gets slightly uncontrolled, wires crossing and setting them on high pitch. It makes him angry - the giddy energy of people celebrating the end of the week like it doesn't happen all the damn time. Conrad and the rest of the too loud bunch make him angry; all of it makes him angry, or at least _she_ does. She makes him angry. The way she looks as broken by this day as he has been even though she has no cause, the fact that she's still so beautiful despite it all. That makes him angry.

He can't do this.

He pushes into her, nods at her to let him out. She stands to let him out and he expects to have to brush past her, he has braced his body for it but when he slides out its just damp air. He turns and finds her standing a step away, glaring at him like he is the one who broke her heart today, like she is the one who has had to pretend to be here and present and not at all broken. He just stares back at her and then instead of going to the bar he heads straight for the door without another word.

He's bulldozing through the crowd, his gait set wide and strong, his legs propelling his weight and arms swinging wide as he crashes through couples without flinching, without turning back at the disgusted grunts and curses from his victims. She stands still for a moment, shocked by the cold depths of his eyes and the bewildered faces of the group he just abandoned as they all look to her for an explanation.

She takes off then. She charges after him, knocking through the just reunited couples, shoulder barging her way through the girls who think she has time for them. She catches him just before he reaches the door and grabs his arm. She pulls hard, yanks his shoulder and has him spinning around. He stares at her incredulously and he just can't, he can't play her stupid game anymore.

"What?" He spits it at her but she doesn't flinch, she doesn't budge at all, she just throws the venom back in his face.

"What the hell is your problem?"

He is burning now, shaking and grinding his teeth. He can hear his own blood clicking as he leans in to her ear and snarls, "I heard you!"

He tugs his arms out of her grasp and takes the stairs two at a time. He can't breathe. The cold air hits his face and flutters in his lungs and for a brief moment it feels like freedom, and then it pools in the bottom of his chest and weighs him down, makes his breath short.

His words creep over her skin, they pinch at her neck and the poison he drooled seems to paralyse her for a few slow heartbeats. His words knock about in her mind searching for a place to settle, somewhere that they fit, _He heard her?_ _What does that even mean?_ She's too angry, too exhausted to stay in that stuffy bar and work them over, find the exact moment she lost her balance and put his words in place. She bounds up the stairs, gasping in the air that suddenly turns cold, she rounds the top of the staircase and then she sees him stomping down the street, his breath puffing out white in front of him. She doesn't care anymore, doesn't even have the energy to lend a thought to decent public behaviour, she screams after him, "What the hell does that even mean?"

He spins on his heels as soon as her voice reaches him, as soon as the strained screech of it stabs into his back. She's never seen him like this, he is furious, his shoulders are wide and back straight, his jaw is tense and squared off, his eyes are burning and almost not at all blue and his strides are wide and heavy. He's walking straight at her like he isn't going to stop, like he is just going to run straight over her, walk through her and never look back. He steps right into her space, towers over her and she presses away, tries to level them out but her back hits the wall and she is totally caged.

He is staring at her like he can't see anything, like he is searching her for something, anything that he knows but she isn't there and she has never felt so naked in her life. He lowers his face to hers, his eyes staring into hers as he breathes the words out over her face, grumbly and rough. "I. Heard. You."

He's staring at her. Challenging her, daring her. She nudges forward, her nose almost smashing into his and echoes his tone, "You. Heard. Me. What?"

He growls and steps back, turns away from her to take and breath and then charges back into her, his body jerky as he shifts on his feet, struggling to hold the anger in. His voice is deep and booming, "Stop Kate! I'm sick of playing your games. You think this is funny? You think you can just do whatever you like, mess around with people and waste their lives because, what? Because, oh you're Kate Beckett and nobody will ever say no? Is that fun for you? Watching someone run after you and then what? What were you planning on doing Kate, letting me chase you forever? I never… God, Kate, I never thought you would do that, how could… you just… how could you do this Kate, I thought… you know what, I'm done, forget it! Forget me. You can go get a new toy to play with."

His words hit her hard, knock the air out of her lungs and she's flummoxed, completely confused and… furious now, what the hell is his problem and is that really what he thinks? He needs to get out of her face right now.

"What the fuck?"

He doesn't respond to her, he just stares down at her, his nostrils flare and then he turns to leave. He manages two steps before the words rip from her through, raspy and harsh they cut into the back of his knees and send him careening back to her.

"Screw you, Castle!"

He's in her face again, scowling at her as he growls "Screw me? No, screw you Kate! You are the one who did this, not me."

She can't do this, everything is fast and slow and disjointed and she doesn't know how they ended up here. The question comes out soft and pleading because she doesn't… she can't be bothered to be angry right now.

"What? What did I do?"

He leans into her and she almost sobs as his body presses hers against the wall, warm and strong and surrounding her, his nose nudges through her hair and his lips press into her ear, scrape over the soft skin there as he whispers, "I was shot in the chest and I remember every second of it. Every. Fucking. Second."

Everything drains out of her. She is empty and by the time she opens her eyes he is gone. He tears down the street and she is left again to watch his retreating form as her body stays pressed into the wall like an idiot. The shocks seeps away fast though, chased out of her system by the anger that races hot under her skin. She strides after him, her body trained and positioned for a fight because she is the one who is furious now, her heels clack loudly along the sidewalk and he stops in his tracks because he knows that walk. This isn't Kate, a little tipsy and a lot pissed off, this is Detective Kate Beckett about to take him down in the street and she has bruised him enough, he doesn't need a broken limb to remind him of the pain. He stops and he hears her stop two steps away from him and panting and then she says.

"You're an idiot!"

It shocks him, jolts his spine and has him spinning around to face her. He looks at her like she might have actually lost her mind, or maybe he did because she couldn't have actually just said that to him.

"Excuse me?" It's laced with incredulity and a thinly veiled warning but he doesn't expect what comes next.

She hangs her head down, escapes his gaze and blinks away the tears that are threating now, rising up her throat and burning at the back of her nose, blurring her vision. She whispers it, "I'm sorry".

"Are you sorry or am I am idiot?" He yells it at her because he's confused and hurting and he doesn't want to play.

"Both" She says and the fact that it's honest makes him angry. He needs to get away from her, he can't do this, she's making this harder and that's not at all fair.

"I don't have time for this Kate." He looks at her and his eyes are sad, broken and resigned and she can't hold it together anymore. A single tear slips over her eyelid and runs hot against her cheek before dropping with a small pat onto her shoe.

It pulls at the ribcage, the anger she breathes into herself when she sees him, when she sees what she has done to him, the way his eyes are crinkled and dark and his lips turn down, the way she has taken all the nine year old out of him and left a broken and bleeding shell to match her own. She didn't mean it though, she never meant to hurt him, she was trying… she didn't mean to hurt him and that thought alone presses the fight back into her because how could he think that?

"Do you really think that? That I was just playing with you, that I treat you like some puppy because what was it? Oh, that's right, I'm Kate Beckett and nobody will ever say no." It comes out sarcastic and snippy but she means it because he may be hurt but she's hurt too and she never thought, she wouldn't think that of him.

"Is that what you really think?" - Louder now because it hurts.

"How could you think that? You idiot." - Yelling now because it really is ridiculous. The yelling sparks him though, it makes his jaw twitch and he takes a step closer to her as he starts, just as sarcastic and patronising as she was.

"How could I think that? Hmmm… let me see" He starts putting up fingers, making a list in her face, "I tell you I love you and then feel you die beneath my fingertips, I sit there like a helpless fool and watch you die again, your boyfriend punches me in the face, tells me it's my fault that you were shot, that you died and maybe it is, I spend every day sleeping at the precinct, pouring myself into your shooting because I never meant to start a war and I'm sorry Kate, and then you say you'll call me. You don't. You say you don't remember. You do. You let me follow you around for almost a year, with some deluded hope that maybe someday you'll love me back. So is that what I think… what the hell was I supposed to think Kate?"

Everything hurts. Her eyes burns and her muscles are shaky, her joints are grinding and she barely has the energy to stay upright anymore, because she was just pushing him, she never believed he actually thought that but he… how the hell did they get here? She gives it all back to him then, her side of his story so he can see but it doesn't come out as strong as his, it cracks half way and gets drawn out through tears.

"That I was shot in the chest and terrified, that I was sure it would happen again, that you tried to take that bullet for me and I didn't want to give you the chance to try again. Did you ever think that I am broken, that I'm damaged and maybe it was just too big to deal with, that maybe I was trying, did you Castle? Did ever stop and think that maybe I was fucking trying? Ever think that I have been taking down hardened criminals and cold blooded killers for years, I have been chasing after evil in the dark since I was nineteen and the only person I have ever been afraid of is you? That I have been in therapy since the shooting because I am grown woman who has been kicked in the ass so many times that I need someone to teach me how to live, how to put one foot in front of the other and make it through each day, that I have been trying to heal, trying to put myself together so I could be ready, for you, for us?"

Tears are streaming down her face and she hastens to wipe them away, to gather the strength to just get through this, to walk away and get off the street, to make it home before she crumbles. She lifts her head back to him and he steps in closer, his whole body a little softer now, gentle but still trembling. He cups her cheek and pulls her face to look up at him, brushes the tears away with his thumb and murmurs quietly to her.

"You're scared of me?"

She whispers back - "Terrified."

He wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her close, "Why?" it leaves his lips softly and his body is warm around hers but there is still something cold running through him, something hurt and frightened of being burnt, it keeps his body stiff and his eyes haven't cleared.

She rises up and a kiss from shaky lips melts the whole winter from his veins. Everything calms then, his body and hers both, he pushes his mouth more firmly into hers and she sighs around his bottom lip. They stay like that in a moment of stilled relief like they're standing in the eye of a hurricane. Both weary of how fragile it all is, how fragile _they_ are, and silently waiting for the rest of the storm to catch up and tear them apart. They're shaky, both of them are trembling and she can't bring herself to open her eyes, she's too terrified that the easy flutter of her eyelashes might blow this whole thing over and leave them shattered and irreparable. She slides her lips along his and settles at the corner of his mouth where her tears and his are collecting in a salty mix of them, she licks them up, keeps her eyes closed and barely breathes the words into his skin, "Because I love you".

It's quick and rough then, all fast movements and searing pain as he pushes her hard against the window of some cafe. He holds her at arm's length, his body tense but vibrating as he whispers her name like a prayer, like he is begging her not to hurt him and it breaks her heart. She grabs him by the lapels then and shakes him hard, startles the focus back into his eyes and forces him to look at her with a finger hooked under his chin. She says it again, louder this time, strong with the surety of everything behind it, "I love you".

His mouth is on hers then, hard and demanding and possessive. She vaguely registered the sound of traffic and sirens in the distance, his hands skim under her shirt and the cold night air hits her flushed skin. The shock knocks her back, pulls her from the kiss. Her head is hazy, her body short-circuiting and she just manages to gasp out "Home, Castle".

He dives into her, buries his lips under the collar of her shirt, sucks along her collar bone and then licks a line up her neck before sucking at the skin beneath her ear. She tips her head to the side and fists her hands in his shirt, pulling him closer as he shifts a thigh between her legs and pins her in place. Her body rolls beneath him, sends a wave of heat through them and then she stutters out "Take me home, Castle" on the end of a moan.

Suddenly, the cold air is rushing in around her body as he jumps away from her. With his fingers tangled in hers and palm to palm he takes off. He jerks her into action and runs without warning, without even looking back at her, he just runs. He is dragging her along in a tangled mess and it takes her a few stumbling footsteps to get her balance, find her gravity again and keep moving.

The wind catches her hair, lifts it up off her hot neck and tosses it wildly behind her. He is tugging at her arm and bounding down the street as she tries to keep her footing in time with his, keep dancing even though there is no step back now. Everything is rushing past her now, her blood is pounding through her body and she is tripping along behind him but her mind catches on something and it falls out of her mouth before she can stop it.

"Josh punched you?" It comes out squeaky, high pitched and stupid because he is really running now and he is pretty fast when he wants to be and she doesn't know why she is running but she is and it just fell out mid breath.

He pants out a "Yeah" that hangs in a white cloud before she bursts through it behind him and it seems her mouth is having a problem closing now because her response falls out as fast as the question did.

She calls out an "I'm gonna punch him, if I ever see him again!" while she runs, keeps up with his long strides, and then his laughter is huffing out between breaths and breaking over her face as she inhales it in.

Her laughter joins his to hang and drift along in the air behind them as they run like crazy with their hands tied together through the streets of New York City, because she has been matching his footsteps for two blocks now but she only just realised that she said _Take me home_, _Castle _and he started running. Idiot.

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As always, I appreciate reviews and hope you enjoyed this! Thanks x


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